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How Useful Are Blood Tests For Kids?

nosy parker

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nosy parker Apprentice
nosy parker
Posted

Just wondering, since the blood tests don't seem to me to be a great detector of celiac (of course this is just my impression).  How likely are they to be useful for kids?  I decided after my ongoing saga to go ahead and test my boys.  They are doing the TTG-IgA and IgG, as the other tests you all reference don't seem to be available here. 

 

They are 11 and 12.

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greenbeanie Enthusiast
greenbeanie
Posted

My understanding is that false negatives are fairly common in children, but the test still seems useful because a positive result would be informative. My daughter got a clear positive on tTG-IgA (hers was 69, with anything over 4 positive) the week after she turned four years old. And she was not really eating much wheat at all at the time, though I did make sure she had at least one small serving every day in the month leading up to the test. Her biopsy confirmed celiac the following week.

If your boys' tests are negative, that wouldn't necessarily rule out celiac (especially if they have symptoms) - but if they have positive tests, it would be great to find that out now.

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